[drum monkey]

If you would, what kind of differences are there between the two?  I mean, just to kind of discuss it.  How would you train a woman for either leanness, more muscularity, or just general health, and how would it be different for training for a man?

[cpbell0033944]

http://www.womenfitness.net/top10_misconception_bodybuild.htm

[drum monkey]

so, no difference?

it just seems like there's something there.  i can't exactly put my finger on it.

just as a (kind of) example, i have a little story about an experience i had in the gym. 

I'm not the most physically stunning specimen evar (not that i'm bad off, just not peak…anything).  And i was there, early on in my weight training career, doing curls.  A trainer there, a woman about 25 years old and with a fantastic (buff but not the leanest) build was kind of showing me tips here and there.  Of course i was just taking any opportunity to talk to her, but that's besides the point.

So she was showing me this one kind of superset with curls, 8 reps with say 40 lbs, 10 with 35 and 12 with 30.  Maybe a 5 or ten higher, I can't really remember.  But anyway, this girl should blow me away by the looks of the both of us, and we were doing the same thing.  She may have even been going lighter, though.

So she says something to me along the lines of "If i can do this, you certainly can".  Now, my first (and probably correct) assumption is that it was just an ego stroke, something to keep me going.  Typical trainer stuff.  But the thing that made me think about it more was just that, I wasn't really needing it.  It was just the kind of inflection you get when there's some less than proud truth to it, you know?

I've never really been the kind to say that women have some difference in the actual muscle tissue than men, just that they naturally have less.  But there's this strange thing that this girl who was noticeably more muscular than a lot of the guys in there almost always trained lighter, and has had trouble with some weights that i did not have too much trouble with.  It could be she was just fatigued by the time she got around to them, but I just don't think that's the case.

So, that's kind of why I wanted to ask, just to find out IF there are any differences maybe I should know about.

[cpbell0033944]

It's possibly limb length – a longer limb means longer muscles (they have, of course, to anchor to the bone), therefore less leverage.

[L]

there are some good points in that list, I like the one that talks about social hinderances 😉

[stmercy2020]

Colette Dowling addresses alot of these issues, particularly the way society tends to repress the physical development of girls as they mature, in a book she wrote in 2001 called The Frailty Myth.  In particular, she notes that at young ages, girls and boys perform on a par, but as it becomes important to be attractive to young men, girls start to perform less well in physical activities.  Surprisingly, though, she posits that this hasn't always been the case- according to her research, this tendency towards a weak, frail female has been the result of, essentially, societal repression that really took off in the Victorian era.  Whether you agree with her thesis or not, it's worth checking out.

[cpbell0033944]

In particular, she notes that at young ages, girls and boys perform on a par, but as it becomes important to be attractive to young men, girls start to perform less well in physical activities. 

In fact, around 8-12 years of age, girls are often stronger than boys.

[Author]

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